Texas Teacher Retirement System selected two existing external managers — Wellington Management and D.E. Shaw Group — to manage new active global value equity allocations.
Wellington was awarded an additional $370 million to be managed by two Wellington global value equity managers, according to a review of external public markets presented to TRS’ board of trustees at their Sept. 12 meeting by Dale West, a TRS managing director.
TRS has invested in Wellington’s Global Select Capital Appreciation strategy since 2009, which “uses a multimanager approach allocating equally to three Wellington portfolio managers and is largely tilted to growth environments,” according to Mr. West’s board presentation. Wellington managed $1.2 billion for TRS in the GSCA strategy as of July 31.
D.E. Shaw Group, which managed $923 million in U.S. equities as of July 31, was awarded an additional $100 million to manage in global value equities by the $115.9 billion pension fund, confirmed Juliana Fernandez Helton, a TRS spokeswoman, in an e-mail.
The investment team of the Austin-based pension fund also launched an internally managed risk-parity portfolio on July 1 with $100 million invested in “a risk-balanced blend of assets including equities, nominal bonds, inflation-linked bonds and commodities,” Ms. Helton’s e-mail said.
James Nield, senior investment manager, is the portfolio manager of the risk-parity strategy, assisted by Mark Telschow, senior associate, Ms. Helton said.
Finally, TRS staff said in their presentations to trustees that they are researching five alternative beta strategies, one value/dislocation strategy and four alpha strategies. Ms. Helton would not disclose the types of strategies being considered for internal and external management, stressing in her e-mail that “while these strategies are under development, TRS does not comment on our investment strategy focus or progress.”
